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            <h2 class="title"><a id="introduction"></a>Chapter 1. Introduction to Berkeley DB </h2>
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          <b>Table of Contents</b>
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              <a href="introduction.html#aboutthismanual">About This Manual</a>
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                  <a href="accessmethods.html#selectAM">Selecting Access Methods</a>
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                <span class="sect2">
                  <a href="accessmethods.html#BTreeVSHash">Choosing between BTree and Hash</a>
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                  <a href="accessmethods.html#QueueVSRecno">Choosing between Queue and Recno</a>
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              <a href="databaseLimits.html">Database Limits and Portability</a>
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            <span class="sect1">
              <a href="coreExceptions.html">Exception Handling</a>
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              <a href="returns.html">Error Returns</a>
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              <a href="gettingit.html">Getting and Using DB </a>
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      <p>
    Welcome to Berkeley DB (DB).  DB is a general-purpose embedded
    database engine that is capable of providing a wealth of data management services.
    It is designed from the ground up for high-throughput applications requiring
    in-process, bullet-proof management of mission-critical data. DB can
    gracefully scale from managing a few bytes to terabytes of data. For the most
    part, DB is limited only by your system's available physical resources.
  </p>
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         You use DB through a series of programming APIs which give you the
          ability to read and write your data, manage your database(s), and
          perform other more advanced activities such as managing
          transactions. 
            
  </p>
      <p>
    Because DB is an embedded database engine, it is extremely fast. You compile
    and link it into your application in the same way as you would any
    third-party library. This means that DB runs in the same process space
    as does your application, allowing you to avoid the high cost of
    interprocess communications incurred by stand-alone database servers.
  </p>
      <p>
    To further improve performance, DB offers an in-memory cache designed to
    provide rapid access to your most frequently used data. Once configured,
    cache usage is transparent. It requires very little attention on the part
    of the application developer.
  </p>
      <p>
    Beyond raw speed, DB is also extremely configurable. It provides several
    different ways of organizing your data in its databases. Known as
    <span class="emphasis"><em>access methods</em></span>, each such data organization mechanism
    provides different characteristics that are appropriate for different data
    management profiles. (Note that this manual focuses almost entirely on the
    BTree access method as this is the access method used by the vast majority
    of DB applications).
  </p>
      <p>
    To further improve its configurability, DB offers many different
    subsystems, each of which can be used to extend DB's capabilities. For
    example, many applications require write-protection of their data so
    as to ensure that data is never left in an inconsistent state for any
    reason (such as software bugs or hardware failures). For those
    applications, a transaction subsystem can be enabled and used to
    transactional-protect database writes.
  </p>
      <p>
    The list of operating systems on which DB is available is too long to
    detail here. Suffice to say that it is available on all major commercial
    operating systems, as well as on many embedded platforms.
  </p>
      <p>
    Finally, DB is available in a wealth of programming languages.
    DB is officially supported in C, C++, and Java, but the library is also
    available in many other languages, especially scripting languages such as
    Perl and Python. 
  </p>
      <div class="note" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;">
        <h3 class="title">Note</h3>
        <p>
        Before going any further, it is important to mention that DB is not
        a relational database (although you could use it to build a relational 
        database). Out of the box, DB does not provide higher-level features
        such as triggers, or a high-level query language such as SQL. 
        Instead, DB provides just those minimal
        APIs required to store and retrieve your data as
        efficiently as possible.
   </p>
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        <div class="titlepage">
          <div>
            <div>
              <h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="aboutthismanual"></a>About This Manual</h2>
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        <p>
        This manual introduces DB. As such, this book does not examine
        intermediate or advanced features such as threaded library usage or
        transactional usage. Instead, this manual provides a step-by-step
        introduction to DB's basic concepts and library usage. 
    </p>
        <p>
        Specifically, this manual introduces DB environments, databases,
        database records, and storage and retrieval of database records. This
        book also introduces cursors and their usage, and it describes
        secondary databases. 
    </p>
        <p>
        For the most part, this manual focuses on the BTree access method. A
        chapter is given at the end of this manual that describes some of the
        concepts involving BTree usage, such as duplicate record management and comparison
        routines.
    </p>
        <p>
        Examples are given throughout this book that are designed to illustrate
        API usage.  At the end of each 
        <span>chapter,</span> 
         
        a complete example is given that
        is designed to reinforce the concepts covered in that 
        <span>chapter.</span> 
         
        In addition to being presented in this book, these final programs are also 
        available in the DB software distribution. You can find them in
     </p>
        <pre class="programlisting"><span class="emphasis"><em>DB_INSTALL</em></span>/examples_cxx/getting_started</pre>
        <p>
         where <code class="literal"><span class="emphasis"><em>DB_INSTALL</em></span></code> is the
         location where you placed your DB distribution.
     </p>
        <p> 
        This book uses the C++ programming languages for its examples.
        Note that versions of this book exist for the C and Java languages as
        well.  
    </p>
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